Welcoming Communities Featured on Livability’s “Inside America’s Best Cities” Podcast
On November 14th, Welcoming Communities Director Alex Beck was featured on Livability’s “Inside America’s Best Cities” Podcast.
He joined to share about Brattleboro’s Welcoming Workplaces Initiative supporting local employers in welcoming all kinds of employees, particularly immigrants and refugees new to the U.S. Tune in to hear about increasing diversity in a small community and making an impact for both new Americans and locals.
Below is an abridged transcript of the conversation;
TELL US ABOUT YOUR WELCOMING WORKPLACES INITIATIVE.
Very recently, Brattleboro became a refugee resettlement community, in large part due to our support of welcoming more folks, particularly to work, but also to live in our community. And we realized that because our part of Vermont hasn’t had a lot of immigration, that not only would our new neighbors need some support finding work, we knew our employers would need some support in hiring and recruiting and retaining folks of diverse backgrounds and with diverse language abilities. And so this program was really designed to do both: to get folks jobs that paid them good wages and for employers to get good employees for their companies.
WAS THIS SOMETHING THAT YOU LAUNCHED OR THAT YOU INHERITED? HOW DID THIS TAKE SHAPE?
Our organization, for better or for worse, has seen the writing on the wall around the workforce in rural communities for a decade. So I’ve spent the greater part of eight years here working on supporting lifelong Vermonters or folks who are in Vermont, high school students, college students, adult job seekers and those entering the workforce. And we knew that wasn’t enough, so our organization partnered with a national refugee settlement organization to open an office. From there, we really saw that we also had work to do in preparing our community. And the training we put together was designed by myself and my colleague Amir … teaming up together and making it up as we go, as most great programs often start.
HOW MANY FOLKS OVERALL HAS THE PROGRAM BROUGHT IN THUS FAR?
Our refugee partners have brought in a total of around 200 folks in the two years since it’s been open. And to be clear, our organization doesn’t do refugee resettlement. We’re just employment services in support of that. But it’s based in the community, and so it’s really the pace at which the community can support these folks. And so 200 people, those are families. Some of these families are enormous. One or two parents and half a dozen kids, maybe more. And so at any given time, we have between 90-100 of those folks in our workforce.
HOW HAVE YOUR LONGER-TERM RESIDENTS RESPONDED TO THE EFFORTS TO BRING IN NEW FOLKS?
I think like all community issues, it’s complicated. Brattleboro is the home of World Learning, which runs international aid programs. It runs study abroad programs. So we are this incredibly worldly community. And so from a xenophobia standpoint, from an intercultural and multicultural standpoint, we were incredibly welcoming. The community itself really was here to support folks. However, we face a lot of challenges that other rural communities do around housing and infrastructure, and there will always be people on both sides of those topics. And housing is a great example. We have a lot of people saying: ‘I would love for there to be more immigrants, but these are the reasons why I don’t want these housing units in my backyard.’
How well we supported our Afghan neighbors was remarkable. And in order for us to keep doing this work, we need more housing, we need better transportation, and our communities are going to need to invest in that infrastructure, not just for immigrants, but for, Americans in New Hampshire, right across the river, who might want to move to Brattleboro or folks in Greenfield, you know, we live quite close to many much larger places. And so the infrastructure we need to build and support isn’t just for immigrants, it’s for working families. And so I think that that’s where we are now — we’ve gone beyond that political reaction to now.
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